In Chicago, former President Barack Obama campaigns for Illinois Democratic ticket, says 'don't be bamboozled' by GOP rhetoric

Former President Barack Obama visits Chicago in a last-minute, high-profile appeal to voters on behalf of Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker and the party’s other top hopefuls at the UIC Pavilion on Nov. 4, 2018, in Chicago.

(Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

Rick Pearson, Patrick O'Connell, Mike RiopellChicago Tribune

Former President Barack Obama returned to his former hometown Sunday, attempting to convert Democratic enthusiasm into votes on Tuesday as he decried Republicans for going beyond political spin to fearmongering and “blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly lying” to win support.

“Vote IL DEMS November 6” was a message scrolled on the ribbon board of the 9,500-seat arena at the UIC Pavilion as well as on the podium as Obama, joined by the statewide Democratic ticket and two suburban congressional hopefuls, challenged voters to seek better.

“Democracy doesn’t work if there is no check, if there’s no consequences, for an absence of truth,” he said during his 45 minutes of remarks, his voice hoarse from campaigning for Democratic candidates across the country as a counter to Republican President Donald Trump.

“In Illinois, it turns out the check on this behavior is you. You and your vote. On Tuesday, you can vote for a politics that is decent and a politics that’s honest and a politics that is lawful and a politics that tries to do right by people. And that’s what I’m asking all of us to stand up for, with purpose and patriotism and moral clarity,” he said.

Obama, with Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker joining him on stage, recounted that his visit marked the 10th anniversary of his presidential win in 2008 and recalled looking out at the massive crowd as his victory celebration in Grant Park.

“It was a movement of Americans that believed we all had something to contribute, that we all had a story worthy of being told, that we all deserved a shot at our American Dream. And when the cynics said we couldn’t, we said, ‘Yes, we can.’ And that night we said that, yes, we did,” he said.

Acknowledging the sharp partisan divisions in the nation, though never specifically mentioning his White House successor, Obama urged voters to believe in “the abiding spirit of the American people. Goodness and decency is still out there. Kindness is still out there. Generosity is still out there. Hope is still out there. We just have to stand up and speak for it.”

As Obama pushed for the Illinois Democratic ticket, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and the GOP statewide ticket met in south suburban Orland Park after a lengthy bus tour aimed primarily at core Republican conservatives who have been divided over the governor’s signature on laws expanding abortion, immigration and transgender rights.

Obama’s visit bookended eight days of campaigning in Illinois that saw Trump in Republican-friendly territory in southern Illinois the previous weekend on behalf of GOP congressional incumbents. In between were visits by former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Obama’s return to Chicago came as Trump campaigned in Macon, Ga., on behalf of Republican governor candidate Brian Kemp, who is being challenged by Stacey Abrams seeking to become the first black woman to become a state chief executive.

“They will move immediately to reverse American progress and to eradicate all of the gains that we’ve made. The Democrat Party wants to raise your taxes, restore immediately job-killing regulations. They want to take away and destroy your health care,” Trump said.

But Obama, in a swipe at Trump, said “the character of our nation is on the ballot” on Tuesday as he attacked what he called a White House-led politics of division.

“When you vote, Illinois, you can reject that kind of politics. When you participate in the political process, you can be a check on bad behavior. When you vote, Illinois, you can choose hope over fear,” he said.

Obama’s visit included a push for Democratic congressional candidates in two tight races: Sean Casten of Downers Grove, who is challenging Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of Wheaton, and Lauren Underwood of Naperville, a former Obama U.S. Senate intern who also worked in his White House administration on implementing the Affordable Care Act. Underwood is challenging Republican Rep. Randy Hultgren of Plano, who traveled to Trump’s Downstate rally and was called up on stage despite representing a district hundreds of miles to the north.

Obama questioned why Republican candidates weren’t running on their repeated efforts to repeal his signature health care law or on GOP tax cuts and instead were vowing to protect insurance coverage for pre-existing medical conditions —though Republican Obamacare alternatives could make such coverage cost prohibitive.

“That’s a lot of gall. That’s a lot of nerve. That’s a lot of chutzpah,” Obama said, later urging voters, “Don’t be hoodwinked, don’t be bamboozled. Do not fall for the okey-doke” and get distracted by Republican rhetoric.

“What we have not seen before, at least in my lifetime, are politicians who are blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly lying. I mean, just no shame,” the former president said. “It’s like up is down and black is white and just making stuff up, literally spending millions of dollars in advertising that you are doing something, when you are doing something the exact opposite.”

Obama then went on to criticize the Trump administration’s efforts to try to turn into a political motivator for his base a caravan of Central American asylum-seekers walking through Mexico and still several hundred miles from the U.S. border. A first wave of U.S. military troops has arrived at the border under Trump’s direction.

“In this election cycle, suddenly the single biggest threat to America, the biggest crisis — hey, you know, it’s not guys on the streets killing our kids, it’s not, you know, getting folks work and making sure our school system works. No, it is impoverished, shoeless immigrants, refugees, a thousand miles away. That is the single thing that is going to getcha? Really?” Obama asked rhetorically.

“And you know what makes it worse is they’re using our brave troops, taking them away from their families, for a political stunt at the border. Even though by law troops can’t do law enforcement,” he said.

The rest of the Democratic ticket, taking turns on stage, was not as reticent as Obama in criticizing Trump and sought to use a theme of restoring values as a motivator for turnout on Tuesday, as did the state’s senior Democratic U.S. senator, Dick Durbin, who is not on the ballot this year.

“We’re going to say to that president who currently resides in the White House, ‘Take your values and take your tweets and put ’em where the sun never shines.’ America is ready to step up and lead,” Durbin said.

Underwood, a 32-year-old registered nurse, said the nation was experiencing “extraordinary times — times that require all of us to step outside our comfort zone and do the right thing for our community.”

Casten said Trump’s values “aren’t my values, his values aren’t your values, his values aren’t our values,” referring to the president as a “demagogue” while the GOP-led Congress “sits in silent complicity.”

Pritzker accused Rauner and the state Republican Party of adopting Trump’s “retrograde views,” including viewing people as a threat “because of the way they look or worship or identify.”

“Illinois, my faith in you has never been greater,” Pritzker said, saying residents have shown “you prove progress is always possible.”

Democratic attorney general candidate Kwame Raoul, who replaced Obama in the Illinois Senate after Obama’s U.S. Senate victory in 2004, noted the current president’s attacks on illegal immigration and vow to end birthright citizenship. Raoul said he is the son of Haitian immigrants “who did not come from an s---hole” — a reference to Trump’s use of the vulgarity to describe Haiti in the 2016 campaign, according to Bob Woodward’s latest book, “Fear: Trump in the White House.”

“I am a birthright baby born in 1964 to a Haitian mother not naturalized as a citizen until 1967. I’m a proud American, and neither Donald Trump or his bigoted rhetoric nor his proposals for unconstitutional executive order can take that away from me. We need to reject his divisive words of bigotry, which have created a dangerous environment,” said Raoul, who is in a close contest with Republican Erika Harold of Urbana to replace retiring Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

Shortly after Obama finished speaking, Rauner arrived back in the Chicago area after a frenzied final weekend of campaigning Downstate, packing a room in an Orland Park restaurant as GOP contenders pushed their faithful to vote, limit any potential blue wave to a ripple and deliver the governor a second term.

Rauner hammered the themes of his campaign and first term in his closing argument, telling the crowd he’ll fight for lower taxes and against Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.

“Four years ago, nobody thought we could win. We were trailin’ in the polls,” Rauner said. “And we had 12 years of Mike Madigan and (imprisoned former Gov. Rod) Blagojevich and (former Gov. Pat) Quinn and tax hikes and job losses and corruption.”

Rauner’s pitch centered on Pritzker and Madigan being a “nightmare” for the state.

“We’ll have the highest income taxes in America if Pritzker and Madigan get in there,” he said. “The middle class is gonna get crushed.”

Harold, the attorney general candidate, spent the weekend in the battleground Chicago suburbs and repeated her attack on Raoul’s campaign for taking $1 million from Madigan in the closing days of the race. Madigan is the father of the current attorney general.

“When I started this race, I said I was coming to take on the Madigan machine,” Harold said. “And I will tell you, I know the Madigan machine is scared.”

Earlier Sunday, Roskam appeared on Fox News touting the Republican tax overhaul he helped engineer and said the Affordable Care Act “has not served my district well.”

“I’m a strong supporter of those pre-existing condition protections. It was in the Republican alternative explicitly, and that really is a settled question,” Roskam said.

A May 2017 report from the Congressional Budget Office said people with pre-existing conditions “would ultimately be unable to purchase comprehensive nongroup health insurance at premiums comparable to those under current law, if they could purchase it at all.”

Roskam also renewed his frequent attack on challenger Casten’s rhetoric, telling Fox viewers the Democrat said on a podcast that “Fox News exists to make people stupid.”